Film-makers are needy, narcissistic, bullying egotists with every right to demand the impossible from the lowly underlings who work for them. If they were not, they would never get any films made, and certainly none that qualify as Great Art. This seems to be the dubious take-home message of Michel Gondry’s first feature in eight years, The Book of Solutions, the visionary French writer-director’s most nakedly autobiographical work to date.
Of course, as with previous Gondry comedies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), The Science of Sleep (2006) and Be Kind, Rewind (2007), his new feature is leavened by ironic humour, off-beat charm, hand-crafted special effects, jaunty music and inventively quirky visuals. Whether these factors save it from sinking into a special-pleading apologia for asshole artists is arguable, but they go a long way to making The Book of Solutions more fun than most navel-gazing genius-is-pain movies. World premiering in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar in Cannes, this slender comeback is too uneven and self-pitying to rank among Gondry’s best work, and is likely headed for limited art-house play outside France. But the director has carved a unique stylistic niche in European cinema, and it is good to see him back on the big screen.
The Book of Solutions is loosely inspired by Gondry’s bruising post-production battles on the surrealist literary rom-com Mood Indigo (2013). Pierre Niney (Yves St Laurent) gives an appealingly animated, loose-limbed performance as hot-headed, Paris-based film director Marc Becker, who is thrown into panic when unhappy studio bosses move to seize back control of his latest project. Instead of going quietly, he steals the film and stages a dramatic escape to his aunt’s village deep in the Cevennes, a mountainous region in southern France. Accompanied by a small team of loyal assistants, Marc moves back in with his endlessly supportive aunt Denise, a wise matriarch figure invested with warmth and soul by a superb Françoise Lebrun. Reinforcing this story’s personal roots, the house Gondry uses as his main location once belonged to his real aunt, Suzette, and he dedicates this film to her.
Replanted back in his childhood comfort zone, shielded from studio interference, Marc finally has the luxury to fix and finish his film on his own terms. And yet, he proves neurotically unable to even sit down and watch it, forever diverting himself with absurd excuses and preposterous side projects: converting an old truck into an editing suite, shooting an animated short about an ant, buying a ruined old house for potential conversion into a home studio, and other weapons of mass distraction. He also builds himself a chair because, as he pompously proclaims, “a man is not a man until he has built a chair.”
The film’s mid-section begins as a promising fish-out-of-water farce, but it quickly unravels into a rambling string of tangents and skits, with very little plot progression. But one comic highlight here is a sequence in which Marc attempts to hijack an orchestra from its conductor with his own predictably loopy, doomed musical agenda. A brief cameo by veteran rock star Sting, who agrees to play on the fictional film’s soundtrack, is a sweet casting coup but little more than a goofy set-up for a smart punchline. “Some victories are so spectacular, they don’t need a voice-over,” Marc announces following their recording session. In voice-over.
Already erratic, Marc’s mood swings grow more extreme after he unwisely ditches his anti-depressant meds, which only leads to more angry outbursts and more insane demands on his long-suffering assistants, Charlotte (Blanche Gardin) and Sylvia (Frankie Wallach), To help overcome creative blocks and crushing doubts, he begins writing his “book of solutions”, a manual of Zen-like self-help advice with runic symbols as chapter headings. As a narrative framing device, this is a promising idea with comic potential. But Gondry’s focus remains as undisciplined as his protagonist, and he only returns to the book at sporadic intervals, never making it the key plot driver that the film’s title suggests.
The Book of Solutions is not great with resolutions. Instead of tying up loose ends in his final act, Gondry goes into tone-shifting, plot-scrambling overdrive by embroiling Marc in a gun battle, a lethal car chase, a bizarrely silly side career as a small-town major, and a budding romance with a Manic Pixie Screen Girl, video technician Gabrielle (Camille Rutherford). He pursues Gabrielle with a sulky stalker-ish entitlement that would ring #MeToo alarm bells for most women, but this is a French film, so it is presented here as an adorably passionate infatuation.
Gondry’s non-ironic eagerness for viewers to like Marc and forgive his many flaws, as mentioned in his Cannes press notes and related interviews, is a self-indulgent blind spot that weakens The Book of Solutions. Peppered with whimsical jokes and playful stylistic tics, this love letter to asshole artists is a mostly fun comeback from a singular film-maker, but not quite the charming depiction of eternally spotless man-child genius it believes itself to be.
Director, screenwriter: Michel Gondry
Cast: Pierre Niney, Blanche Gardin, Françoise Lebrun, Frankie Wallach, Camille Rutherford, Vincent Elbaz, Sting, Mourad Boudaoud, Sacha Bourdo, Christian Prat, Jacques Mazeran, Justin Houser
Cinematography: Laurent Brunet
Editing: Élise Fievet
Production designer: Pierre Pell
Costume designer: Florence Fontaine
Music: Étienne Charry
Producer: Georges Bermann
Production companies: Partizan (France)
World sales: Kinology
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Directors’ Fortnight)
In French
102 minutes
